When switched on, a wireless communication device searches all the frequency bands to find available cells. For example, a quad-band telephone will search in the GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900 and GSM850 bands in case a signal, whether useful or not, is present therein. This search on each of the four bands may take time. This time is often wasted because they are not all used. Specifically, although in certain countries the telecommunication service providers use all these bands, only two bands out of the four are used in most countries. For example a quad-band telephone used in Europe will waste time searching for a cell in the American PCS1900 and GSM850 bands. Moreover, if certain bands contain only noise, the latter will first of all be associated with one or more potential channels then leading to a search for cells on these channels which will be unsuccessful in the end; the result of this is again a waste of time.
Solutions for excluding certain bands are proposed on the basis of the geographic location of the telephone, via, for example, service provider codes (MNC: Mobile Network Code, according to the terms well known to those skilled in the art). This is not reliable because in each of these countries the use of these bands may change. Other solutions are proposed on the basis of the frequency that the mobile had previously selected. This is not reliable either, because there are geographic zones in which the European and American bands coexist.